


Eden's Gate

by Siyah_Kedi



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M, old, originally written in 2010?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 18:41:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14503131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siyah_Kedi/pseuds/Siyah_Kedi
Summary: the first draft of an old novel.





	1. Prologue

It had been months since he’d gotten a full night’s sleep, but nothing he done so far had helped.  It was sheer desperation that led him to sneak into his father’s room one night and steal the bottle of prescription Lunesta that Evan kept on his nightstand. 

“Zander?”

He froze as his father stirred, and then made up a lie.  “I thought I heard something in here, but I guess it was just the neighbors,” he said.  “Go back to sleep, dad.”

Evan mumbled something nonsensical, and then flopped over onto his back, already snoring again.  Zander let out a quiet whoosh of air, and held the bottle delicately so that it didn’t shake and rattle, waking his father again.  He tip-toed back out of the room, and retrieved a tall glass of water from the kitchen, where he was intercepted by his sister.

“Up late again, Zander?” she asked, bracing one hand on her hip.  She knew he was an insomniac; they all were, three years after the call came in from the police telling them that Cassie Jaden had been in a fatal accident.  That was the reason for Evan’s sleeping pills, which he’d freely shared with his two children when they felt the need for them.  Zander wasn’t in the habit of stealing medication from his father, but he was tired of not being able to sleep, and Evan would only have allowed him two pills at most. 

“Sorry, Tamara,” he said quietly.  “I won’t make too much noise.”

Tamara made a rude noise at him, rolling her eyes.  “Like I fucking care?” she asked rhetorically, and then swiped a can of soda from the fridge before retreating to her own room.  Zander took his water and the pills back to his bedroom, and sat on his bed with his feet drawn up; he’d long since learned not to let any part of his body hang over the edge, especially in the dark.  The moonlight shining in through the window wasn’t enough to deter _them_ , and he wasn’t taking any chances. 

He started with just five pills, and lay back on his bed, trying to will himself to relax enough to let the medicine do its work.  He felt himself drifting off when the scratching, scrabbling noises from beneath the bed set his heart to racing, and the adrenaline suddenly pumping through his veins woke him up thoroughly. 

 _No,_ he told himself.  _I’m not going another night listening to this shit._   Ten more pills went down his throat, followed quickly by ten more when the noises got louder.  His closet door swung open, seemingly of its own volition, and in a panic, Zander dumped the rest of the bottle down his throat. 

When his bedroom abruptly swirled around him, he realised his mistake, but he was already too far gone to undo it.  Desperation clawing it’s way through his middle, the drugs fighting against his oncoming hysteria, he shouted for his sister.  The empty bottle fell to the floor, rolling out of range of the grasping fingers reaching out from beneath his bed, and he reached for his water.  He misjudged which one of the three glasses it was, however, and it tumbled after the empty prescription bottle, spilling all over his floor.

His bedroom door flew open as his sister stampeded in, demanding to know why the hell he was yelling at one-fucking-thirty in the god-damned morning, and then she took in the bottle, and his dazed look, and screamed. 

“Zander! _Zander!_ ”  

The last thing he saw before he blacked out was Tamara’s terrified face as she screamed for Evan.

*

“Welcome back, sport.”

Zander blinked into the too-bright lights that surrounded him, and made a face at the god-awful taste in his mouth.  He felt like he’d been sucking on three-week-old gym socks and cotton balls, and he swished his tongue around, trying to get some saliva moving in order to wash his mouth out. 

“Where am I?” he asked, struggling into a sitting position so he could look around easier.  He recognised the clinical dispassion of the four walls that surrounded him, and realised he was in a hospital bed.

“Lay back down, you’ve got to rest.”  Evan’s eyes were ringed with black, and his face was nearly as white as the walls.  “You’re in the hospital,” he explained.  “Tamara said… well,” he couldn’t finish, clearly.

“I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” Zander said quickly, realising what was about to happen.  _I just wanted to sleep.  How’s that for fair?_

The look on his face said that Evan clearly didn’t believe him.  “Zander, a whole bottle?” His voice was strained, and Zander felt a flood of guilt.  After Cassie’s death, the three of them had been in a bad way.  Tamara had started dying her hair black and dressing in dark clothes, Evan had retreated from the twins, and Zander was left struggling to pull them together when all any of them wanted was to be left alone.  “I know I haven’t been the best of father’s since… since your mother died,” Evan started, and Zander cut him off.

“Dad, it wasn’t suicide,” he promised again, pleading with him to believe.  Evan’s face looked drawn. 

“The doctors are recommending Edensgate,” he said after a long silence.  “I know it’s been three years, but we’ve still got our own problems, and I can’t be there for you all the time like I need to be.  Tamara’s getting counseling because of this; it was really hard on her to find you like that, you know.”  Evan’s voice turned ragged.  “What if she’d ignored you?” 

Zander tugged a hank of his hair over his eyes, pulling on it to distract him.  “I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” he insisted softly.  Evan simply shook his head. 

“As soon as Dr. Winshats tells me you’re well enough to leave, we’re checking you into Edensgate.  And that’s the final decision,” Evan added, his voice hard.  “It’s not easy for any of us, Zander, but you’ve left us no choice.”  He stood, and let himself out of the room, presumably to go track down Dr. Winshats.  Zander groaned out loud, tugging harder on his hair. 

 _Fuck this,_ he thought. _I just wanted to sleep._

 


	2. Chapter One

            Edensgate State Psychiatric Hospital loomed on the horizon like a medieval castle, all huge towers and sprawling wings.  The pamphlet in his lap said that it had been built in the late eighteen hundreds in the Kirkbride style, named for Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride, a nineteenth century physician and asylum superintendant.  The bat-wing-like design and Victorian-era architecture were an attempt to create a space that ‘facilitated a return to sanity’ for the patients housed within. 

Zander was of the personal opinion that it was a crock of shit, something that the rest of the modern world seemed to agree with, as the majority of the Kirkbride asylums had been abandoned in the early nineties and left to rot.  Edensgate was only semi-functional; a lack of funding for repairs and renovations had reduced the massive edifice from eight wings to simply two that were still in use on either side of the admin core.  The pamphlet proudly proclaimed that though it was much reduced in useable size, the two wings still in use were all top-of-the-line, fully restored and renovated to be utterly modern in every conceivable way.  The closed wings were largely boarded off and used mainly for storage, if anything. 

Evan parked in front of the main administrative building, and took a moment to lean over the steering wheel and gape at the massive structure.  “Pretty big, huh sport?” he asked.  Zander deigned not to answer him, more interested in moodily staring out the window at the gravel that made up the drive. 

A kindly looking man came out to greet them.  “You must be Evan Jaden,” he said warmly, and reached out to shake Evan’s hand as he got out of the car.  “My name is George Brita, I’m the director here at Edensgate.  My brother, William owns the entire building and all the land it sits on; he’s here four days a week, but you just missed him.”

Zander slumped out of the car, and stared up at the clock tower that dominated the administrative wing.  Brita turned to him, smiling broadly.

“And this must be Alexander,” he greeted, extending his hand.  Zander tugged his hair with all ten fingers before reaching out to grasp it.

“Zander,” he corrected, and Brita looked pleased.

“What an interesting way of shortening it.  Much less common than Alex.”  He was so genial that not even Zander could be grumpy for long in the face of his smiling friendliness.  “Our head nurse Gabrielle Dulcina runs the boys wing,” he said.  “She’ll be down in a moment to show you to your room while your father and I get you all signed in and set up.”

Just like that, reality came crashing back down.  Zander’s stomach twisted into a knot, and the bright red bricks of Edensgate began to look more like a prison meant to keep him inside, rather than a hospital to help him ‘get well.’

A rather round woman wearing scrubs bustled out the front doors and down the steps, smiling widely.  “Alexander Jaden,” she greeted.  “I’m Gabby Dulcina, head nurse on the boy’s wing.  Come along inside and I’ll show you where you’ll be staying for the next several months.”

“It’s Zander,” he ground out between clenched teeth. Evan tousled his hair.

“It’s not forever,” he told his son.  “Tamara and I’ll be in to visit you every week.  Good luck, sport,” he added as the four of them made their way inside.  Brita led him into an office just inside the doors, while Gabby motioned that Zander should follow him up the stairs to the right. 

“East wing’s for the girls only,” Gabby explained.  “There are co-ed classes and gathering places, such as the solariums, and a yard out the back there, but for sleeping and living, it’s separated for obvious reasons.”  She hauled her bulk up the stairs with an amazing economy of motion, and Zander was winded by the time they reached the third floor.  “First floor’s for the patients that can’t move themselves, in case of a fire or something.  Second floor’s for the transients, the patients that are only here for a week or two at a time, but you’ll be here at least six months, so you’re going up with our permanent residents.  They’re mostly nice boys up here, I’m sure you’ll make a lot of friends in no time.”

“I’m not here for friends,” Zander assured her.  “I’m here because I have no choice.”

Gabby looked sad for a moment.  “Suicide’s a choice,” she told him quietly.

“I didn’t try to kill myself,” he argued, but she was already moving again.

“Younger boys like yourself are all roomed here close to the center,” she explained, as if their short exchange hadn’t happened.  “The older men are closer to the closed off area; less temptation for them to try and break in and go poking around where it’s dangerous.  We’ve got fourteen already here; fifteen including you.  Your father left us your sizes; all patients are assigned soft clothes to wear while you’re here.  Everything you’ve brought with you will be kept in a locked drawer; you’ll need to ask permission to access any of it, which is why you were encouraged not to bring much.  Anything you need can be supplied to you, be it books – we have a rather extensive library here ‘on campus’ as we like to say – paper, music, anything.  We do our best to make sure your time at Edensgate is as easy as possible.”

 _Fucking prison,_ Zander thought unkindly, looking at the pleasantly light-blue walls and solid wooden doors that lined the hallway they were entering onto. 

“Nurses station is right here,” Gabby explained.  “There’s call buttons in your room if you’ve got an emergency, but it’s best to walk yourself down to the station if you need something.”

A tall boy with spiky black hair was coming towards them, a huge grin on his face.  “Heeey, new kid!” he called.  Another boy not much shorter than the first – but still towering over Zander, who barely reached five foot three in his shoes – followed behind him, looking around with barely concealed bewilderment.

Gabby grinned.  “Zander, this is Rafael Nazario and Jay Swarenson, our resident trouble-makers.”

“You love it, Gabby,” Rafael said teasingly, giving the portly woman a wink.  She laughed lightly, shoving at his shoulder.  He turned hazel eyes on Zander with an appreciative look.  “Call me Rafe,” he said, and held his hand out.  Zander studied him for a moment before accepting it.

“Zander,” he offered.  Jay waved from behind Rafe, not bothering to hold his hand out.

“Hi, Zander,” he said softly.  “Welcome to Edensgate.”

“Otherwise known as the vestibule of hell,” Rafe amended.  “Hey Gabby, can I get another pack of graham crackers?”

“Already?” the nurse asked, scowling at him without much heat.  “You just ate two hours ago.”  

“Two _whole_ hours, Gabby,” Rafe said dramatically, clutching at his stomach.  “I’m _dying._   I’m starving to death!  They don’t feed me enough, I’m a growing boy.”

“You don’t need to grow any more,” Zander said grumpily, staring up at him through shaggy blond hair.  Rafe had a good eight inches on him, and made him feel like a midget standing there next to him.    
            “Jealous?” Rafe asked breezily. 

 “There’s nothing to be jealous _of,_ ” Zander replied, and he turned to Gabby.  “Can I go to my room now?”

She retrieved a package of crackers for Rafe, and then bustled him down the hall a short way.  “Here you are,” she said.  The small plaque beside the door read “Jaden, Alexander” and the numbers 309 were nailed to the door itself.  “You’re in nine.  This is your room for the rest of your stay here.”

“Hey, we’re neighbors,” Rafe said.  “I’m in eight, right there.” He gestured across the hall to the open door.  “Jay’s in four, all the way down there.” 

“Bliss and joy,” Zander muttered, and pushed his door open.  Gabby entered behind him, and demonstrated all the drawers, showing him where the clothes were kept, and towels and toiletries.  Each room was equipped with a tiny bathroom, including a shower, but overall it left the impression of madness on Zander.  There wasn’t a sharp corner to be found in the entire room, and the bathroom had no door, or even a shower curtain.  The water came from four spigots set into the wall, and was controlled by a few buttons mounted above the toilet.

The room itself contained a small bed, though it was nothing like the cots he’d seen in pictures of Edensgate in its prime, a set of drawers with a mirror mounted behind a plastic shield, and a desk.  The most arresting thing about the room was the massive windows at the far end, above the bed; they were also covered with a plastic shield, and Zander sighed at the reminders.

“Desperate people will do anything to kill themselves,” Rafe said at his melancholy sigh.  “Gotta make sure that they don’t have anything to do it with.  We don’t even get paper or pens.  Totally sucks.”

“A really determined person could do themselves or someone else an injury with a pencil,” Gabby reminded him.  “That’s how we lost Vince, remember?  Can’t believe Alicia’s still got her job after that,” she muttered, and Zander flicked a curious glance Rafe’s way.  Jay had disappeared at some point, and Zander spared a moment to wonder where he’d gotten off to before Rafe was speaking over his thoughts.

“Vince was the guy who lived in six.  Never did figure out what the hell was wrong with him; I don’t think he spoke three words to me the whole time he was here.  But our night nurse, Alicia Meddin – she’s a total dumbshit – didn’t realise he’d taken a pencil off her desk one night, and we found him the next morning in a puddle of his own blood.”  Rafe’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper.  “He’d stabbed himself in the temple with the pencil sometime in the night.  I still don’t think they’ve gotten the stains off the floor.”

“Enough of that,” Gabby said.  “You’re allowed pencils or pens and paper if you want it of course, but only during the day, and your door’s gotta stay open.”

There were no knobs or locks on the door – at least not which could be locked from the inside.  Zander felt cold as he realised that they could be locked from the outside, with a key.  Gabby pulled the door all the way open, and let it go.  It stopped on its own, and she pushed it again to let it swing closed. 

“Well, I guess that’s it.  If you’ve got any questions, I’ll be here until five tonight, feel free to wander on down and ask.  This first week’ll be for you to get settled in, and getting to know your doctors.  Who’s he got, Rafe?”

“Wilson,” Rafe said cheerily.  Zander wondered how the hell he’d ended up in a place like Edensgate; he seemed to be perfectly normal.

 _I’m normal too,_ he reminded himself.  _And I’m here anyway._

“Dr. Wilson,” Gabby agreed.  “He’s out on break right now, but I bet he’ll stop by and say hello when he gets in.”  She let herself out of the room, and Zander could hear her whistling as she made her way back to the nurse’s station.  Rafe made himself at home on Zander’s bed, eyeing him curiously. 

“So what’re you in for?”

“Technically or honestly?”

“There’s a difference?”

“They say I tried to kill myself.”

Rafe gave him a puzzled look.  “They say,” he repeated.  “Uh?”

“I was just trying to get some sleep,” Zander shrugged.

“Uh?” Rafe said again. 

“What about you?”  Turn about was fair play, after all.

“Uh,” Rafe said a third time, looking hunted.  “Well, I may as well tell you.  They told me I killed my parents.” 

His tone was so light that it took a moment for Zander to comprehend the words.  “They told you?  That’s worse than people assuming I was trying to kill myself.  Don’t you know? That’s… kinda hard to miss, you know.  Oops, I guess I just accidentally aimed this gun at your head and pulled the trigger.”  He flushed the moment the words were out of his mouth; Rafe was a total stranger who’d just admitted a rather horrifying truth about himself, and sarcasm wasn’t the best way to go about making friends.  

To his surprise, Rafe simply laughed.  “I don’t remember anything after seeing my dad hit my mother.  I don’t,” he insisted, seeing the incredulous look on Zander’s face.  “Honest injun.”

“No really,” Zander said.  “How do you forget something like that?”

Rafe shrugged unhelpfully.  “So how does trying to sleep equal a suicide attempt?”

Zander wasn’t the most socially adept person in the world, but he could recognise a subject-change when he saw one.  “You’d think I was crazy if I told you,” he hedged.

“Uh, hello?  Mental hospital.  We’re all a can of mixed nuts here.”

Zander choked back on a laugh.  “That’s true,” he admitted.  He took a deep breath, and tried to phrase it in such a way that it made sense to someone else, someone _normal._   He hadn’t told anyone about the creatures, ever.  _If I had, I’d have been packed up and shipped here long before now._  “Do you remember… being a kid?” he asked.  “And being afraid of things under the bed, or in the closet?”

In some fit of humanity, Rafe managed to look sympathetically understanding as he nodded.

“Did you ever stop to wonder if there was really something there to be afraid of?”  He glanced up at Rafe through his bangs, trying to gauge his reaction to the words.  Rafe looked a little stunned, and a little disbelieving.  “You think I’m crazy,” he said again.

“No,” the other man said.  “I don’t.  You’re… you don’t lie, do you?”

“Excuse me?”

Rafe sighed, and drug a hand through his hair, spiking it up more than it already was.  “I can’t explain it,” he said unhelpfully.  “You just don’t strike me as the type of person who’d make something up to get attention.  And you’re not in here for that, are you?  That’s something different, isn’t it?”

 _Perceptive of you._   “Yes.” Zander fixed his eyes on the window.  “It started when I was a little kid.”  Suddenly the memories were overwhelming reality, and he lost himself in the recollection as he spoke.  “I was about five or six years old, and I’d wake up in the night, and see … dogs.  Big black dogs, just lying around my room.  But when I turned the light on, there was nothing there.”  He could see them again, massive hounds scattered across his floor.  One of them was awake one time, and appeared to be chewing on one of his toys, but when he examined the truck later, it was perfectly whole.  “And then as I got older, they went away, I stopped seeing them.

“Until three years ago.  My mom was working late, and there was a huge thunderstorm rolling through.  She’d just called us from her phone to tell us she’d be on her way home, so we all went to bed.  Maybe an hour later, the phone rang again, and it was the cops.  She’d been in a car accident.  Killed instantly.  That night, I first heard the scratching coming from my closet.  I thought I was imagining things, but then my closet door opened on its own, and there was… something there.”

“Something?”

Zander blinked, and was abruptly back in the sunlit hospital room, sitting across from Rafe who was peering at him intently.  To his surprise, the expression on Rafe’s face wasn’t disbelief; it was surprise.  _Does he believe me?_

“I never saw them clearly.  As soon as the light goes on, they go away.  They just… watch me, for the most part, but that’s disturbing anyway, because I can feel their eyes on me.”  He felt like a lunatic as he described his experiences, but it was a cathartic sort of lunacy; he was finally _telling_ this to someone, and they weren’t laughing at him. 

“You haven’t slept in _three years_ because of this?” Rafe asked, and he seemed to be genuinely concerned.  Zander – so accustomed to his father’s apathy and his sister’s self-absorption – almost didn’t believe that someone – some _stranger_ – could actually care about him.

He shook his head.  “Not well.”  He bit his lip, and debated on whether or not to continue.  Rafe took the decision out of his hands.

“There’s more, isn’t there?”

Zander glanced up again, surprised at Rafe’s perception.  “About a year ago, it started getting worse,” he confided.  “They started… attacking me, I guess.”  It sounded so strange to put it that way.  He’d been living with it for so long, that actually thinking about it was a little terrifying.  “Reaching for me on the bed, grabbing me if I let my hand hang over the edge.”

“Holy _shit,_ ” Rafe murmured.  “That’s … pretty fucking scary.  Light scares them off?”  He waited for Zander’s confirmation, and then offered a wry grin.  “Have you tried a nightlight?”

“Too dim.”  Rafe’s amusement faded as he realised that Zander was serious.  “Street lights, headlights, moonlight, they have no effect.  Only sunlight or really bright lights work.  The one time I tried a nightlight,” and here he smiled grimly.  “It just cast really creepy shadows everywhere, until I couldn’t tell what was _them_ and what was part of my room.”  He’d had nightmares for weeks after that, nightmares that only stopped when he took the nightlight outside and smashed it to pieces with a hammer.  He’d had a vague theory that the nightmares were the product of the creatures, getting back at him for trying to outwit them; he’d never had nightmares before or since the episode with the nightlight.

“Holy shit, man,” Rafe said again.  “Shit.”

“Yeah.”  _That’s putting it delicately._

 


	3. Chapter Two

Zander pulled on the soft cotton shirt and trousers the portly nurse had supplied to him, scowling at his reflection in the window.  Rafe had taken the whole story fairly well, considering, but he’d left shortly afterward and Zander was pretty sure he was warning everyone that the new kid was seriously deranged and not to be messed with.

Well, he wasn’t here to make friends.  And the story would have come out sooner or later.  Twisting a lock of hair between two fingers, he settled himself on the bed and looked around the sparse room.  He’d have a week to settle in before they started in on whatever they were planning to do to him, Dulcina had said.  All well and good, he decided, but what was there to _do_ in the mean time?

A knock on the door interrupted him, and he scowled when it was pushed open a moment later without his acknowledgement. 

“I’m Dr. Daniel Wilson,” the man said.  “You must be Alexander Jaden.  I’ll be holding private and communal classes with you here at Edensgate, as well as supervising any prescriptions or alternative care I might decide you need.  Feel free to come by my office whenever you need me, and unless I’m absolutely busy with someone else, I’ll always be there to help you.  Any questions?”

“Call me Zander,” he said immediately.  Zander _hated_ his name, and it wasn’t such a big imposition to ask them to _not_ call him by it. 

“Very well, Zander.  Anything else?” Dr. Wilson was upbeat, and Zander wondered how long that would last if the good doctor ever got to the bottom of his troubles. 

He had nothing else to add, and simply shrugged. 

“A lot of free patients like yourself like to spend time in the dining solarium,” Wilson suggested. 

“Free patients?”

“Come with me, I’ll give you a tour,” said the doctor.  “It’ll be easier that way any way.”

Almost against his will, Zander gave his hair one last tug and followed Dr. Wilson out of the room.  He felt despairingly small beside the taller man, though not as tiny as he had when Rafe loomed over him.  His height was, as always, an issue.

“I didn’t realise how short you are,” Wilson said, and despite the good-natured tease in the tone, Zander didn’t rise to the bait.  He had to be here; he didn’t have to make nice.

 

The tour was brief, owing mostly to the truncation of the building.  Zander was warned to stay out of the girl’s wing at all costs, and informed that the women and girls housed within would remain on their own side, except for the co-ed classes and in the solariums.  There were two; one on the first floor was used for eating, except for those patients who didn’t leave their rooms and were under constant supervision.  The one on the second floor just above it, Zander learned, was where a majority of the group activities went on, and a section of it had been partitioned off for use as a gym.  The third floor space was a library and often held what Wilson continued to refer to as ‘classes.’

The doctor showed Zander how to best reach his office on the second floor – the elevators were still out of commission, though Wilson promised that the owner, William Brita, had been calling around for a cheap mechanic in order to get them fixed as quickly as possible.  The elevators hadn’t been included in the renovations, however, as much of the center admin building wasn’t – they’d focused their time, attention, and money on the patient facilities, ending with super-advanced patient wings and offices that looked like they hadn’t been touched since the nineteenth century – and as a result, finding someone with the knowledge required to deal with the ancient elevators was proving to be a task in and of itself.

Wilson completed the tour at the first solarium, leaving Zander to his own devices.  “I’ve got some paperwork to catch up on.  You’ll be able to get a drink or a snack here if you’re hungry, or mingle with some of the other residents.”  The doctor strode towards the stairs, an air of commanding dignity draped around him like a cloak.  Zander idly wondered how often he conducted personalized tours of the facility for new residents, and found himself curious as to just how much Evan was paying these people to ‘fix’ his son. 

Twining one finger into his hair, Zander tugged on it briefly, trying to decide whether to continue into the solarium or back to his room.  A friendly voice raised from within the solarium decided him, and he followed it inside to it’s source, trying to remember the boy’s name.

“I’m Jay,” Swarenson reminded him.  He was seated at a table with a diminutive black-haired girl who looked up at him with luminous grey eyes.  “This is my best friend, Nicole.”

Nicole waved shyly.  Zander introduced himself to them again more formally, sitting down when Nicole silently pushed a chair out for him.  He didn’t want to make friends, but he saw no way of extricating himself.  Nicole smiled vaguely, and asked him how his day was going.

“Well,” Zander began, wondering how much he should say to these two.  He’d already told Rafe more than he felt comfortable with now that it was over.  “I’m here.  I don’t know how it can get any worse, so I suppose it’s going to get better.”

“Once you hit rock bottom,” Jay said, “the only place left to go is up.”

The two of them seemed perfectly normal.  Almost against his will, he wanted to know why they were there.  Was it something similar to his and Rafe’s circumstances?  Curiousity bit at him like a dog. 

Nicole twitched slightly, almost imperceptibly, and suddenly a headache blossomed right between Zander’s eyes.  She met his gaze firmly, lifting her chin as she studied him.  “What brings you here?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Zander said.  “I’m sorry.”

She lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug.  “It’s none of my business anyway.”

His head throbbed.  Jay seemed distracted, and Zander wondered how he could escape.  An opportunity presented itself when he saw Rafe outside on a shaded deck, a lit cigarette in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. 

“I’m going to go see how Rafe is,” Zander said, almost too quickly.  He rose, but Jay seemed to not notice him.  Nicole gave him a sharp smile and a truncated wave.

Her eyes were green.

Zander started, but she’d already turned away, and he found himself with nothing else to do except follow through on his plan to seek out Rafe’s company.  A woman in scrubs directed him to the door that lead to the deck, warning him not to stray off into the yard. 

“Mind if I join you?”  Without waiting for an affirmative, Zander sat himself down beside Rafe, wrinkling his nose at the cigarette smoke. 

“Not in the least,” Rafe said after he was sitting.  “Sorry,” he added, and switched the cigarette to his other hand.  “So what are you up to?  Get a tour of the place from Gabby?”

“Dr. Wilson, actually,” Zander said, and watched a surprised flicker pass over Rafe’s face.  His headache was already fading like it had never been, and he forgot about it entirely when he saw the headline of the newspaper stretched out in front of Rafe’s coffee.

_“Son of Notorious Boston Mob Witness to Family Slaying.”_

“What happened here?” He tugged the paper slightly so he could read the article.  “I didn’t think you’d be one for the newspaper,” Zander added, casting a teasing glance in Rafe’s direction.

The taller boy laughed.  “I was on the school paper committee during high school, and never really got back out of the habit of reading it.” 

Zander turned his attention to the article. 

_Dominick O’Brennan, eldest son of the infamous Riley O’Brennan, can trace his lineage back to Prohibition and the golden age of the gangster.  His great uncle spent time in Alcatraz prison for murder before being released in 1960, just three years before the prison known as The Rock was closed down for good.  Into this bloody family Dominick was born, and the bad luck of the O’Brennan name followed him wherever he went.  Riley O’Brennan’s brother Ricky left a bloody trail behind him in a murder spree not seen since the Boston Strangler, kidnapping and killing fifteen women and dumping their bodies into the Charles River.  The final death in this grisly string of murders ended when the eighteen year old O’Brennan heir witnessed his uncle murder his aunt in cold blood at the O’Brennan stronghold just outside of Boston.  Ricky then turned the gun on Dominick’s cousin Renee, also present at the scene, and then himself. Dominick alone was spared any harm.  Renee is currently in the hospital under twenty four hour guard, recovering from the wound, and Dominick remains in police custody as a witness._

“Poor Dominick, eh?” Rafe asked when Zander looked up from the article.  “I’d hate to be in his shoes.”

Zander couldn’t tell if Rafe was being serious or not.  According to his own words, Rafe had not only witnessed his parents being killed, he’d killed his father himself.  Only his lack of memory of the event and the word of the doctors was keeping him in Edensgate and not police custody. 

 _Death everywhere,_ he thought.  His mother.  Rafe’s parents.  Dominick’s aunt and uncle, not to mention the fifteen women Ricky O’Brennan had slaughtered.  The sun slipped behind a cloud, and Zander instinctively flinched as the world darkened perceptively around him.  Death was coming for him, too, in the form of those watchers-in-the-night, the sharp-clawed, yellow-eyed demons who haunted him. 

“Even in the day, huh?” Rafe’s voice was quiet, and for a moment Zander didn’t realise he was talking to him.  “Whether you’re seeing things like Jay or they’re really there, that’s… its really scary.  I don’t think I could do it, if I were in your shoes.”

“Yeah,” Zander said just as softly.  “It’s making me kind of crazy.”

Rafe’s lips twitched, Zander grinned, and a moment later the two of them were howling with helpless laughter.

 

Zander’s first session with Daniel Wilson was one week to the day after he arrived.  The man had been pleasant but distant when Zander had seen him in the hallways during his grace week, always busy, always hurrying to other patients.  To finally have his undivided attention was a little nerve-wracking, and Zander found himself with his lips pressed into a thin white line, refusing to say anything.

“I’d like to be a friend to you, Zander,” Wilson was saying.  “I want you to be able to confide in me about everything.  What you think of the weather, your favourite celebrities, music preferences, what you think, what you like, anything.”

“Okay.” It seemed safest.

“The questionnaire you filled out yesterday was a good start,” Wilson continued, shuffling papers around on his desk.  “Why don’t we continue from there?  Do you suffer much from nightmares?”

“Not really.” Just the one time, when he’d attempted the night light.  But he didn’t want to find himself _really_ committed, moved to the first floor where the patients who were unable to care for themselves resided.  He didn’t know how much worse Wilson could make it for him if he decided he was in danger of harming himself or others because of the night-watchers, and the problems they presented.  Wilson already thought he’d attempted to kill himself.  He had to know what they thought of _that_ before he’d feel comfortable telling the man anything.

“I have a few questions of my own,” he ventured.  Wilson looked attentive; a promising sign, Zander thought.  “I want you to know that I – I wasn’t trying to kill myself.  That night.  I want to know what you think of me.  Why you thought I was.”

“Zander, your father told me that after your mother died, none of you have been the same.  I know what an ordeal it must have been.  From what I’ve seen and heard, your mother was the central force of your family, and her death left you all floundering a bit.  Am I wrong?”

Pensive now, Zander thought back to how things had been when Cassie was still alive.  He’d been just starting to figure himself out, starting high school with his sister, and making new friends.  They laughed a lot in those days.  Everything was funny, life was good.  And in one night, everything was shattered.  After the initial cloud of grief burned away, the night-watchers had come, and Zander found himself standing outside the normal world.  Most of his classmates worried about nothing more serious than who was dating who, and which classes they had and which sports team they supported.  His teachers had noticed when Zander stopped sleeping; his grades had fallen dramatically, he started falling asleep in class, and he walked around like a zombie most of the time.  They all attributed it to the loss of his mother, but Tamara wasn’t reacting like that.  She started dressing in dark clothes and listening to emo music and hanging out with the ‘goth’ crowd, but her grades kept up, and she wasn’t totally useless as a functional member of the school. 

He realised Wilson was still waiting for an answer.  “No,” he said finally.  “You’re not wrong.  She held us all together.  But it wasn’t the way she…died…that screwed me up so much.  I can’t tell you why.  You’d never believe me.”

Wilson heaved a sigh.  “I’m not allowed to tell you specifics about the other patients.  What they tell you on their own is their business.  So without naming names, we have here a patient who sees things.  I once found h- the patient sitting in the middle of the solarium, laughing.  When I asked him what he was doing, he said watching the circus.  The room was utterly empty at the time, but he truly believed he was at a circus.  His visions are immaculately detailed, but they _are not real._   But I do not disbelief that he sees them.  Just because I cannot see what he sees, it doesn’t mean that I think he’s making it up. 

“So there’s nothing you can tell me that I won’t believe.  After ten years working for Edensgate, I am fully prepared to believe _anything_.  Even if it’s not – real – to me.”

Zander swallowed.  He’d already told Rafe, who had no patient-doctor confidentiality to uphold.  Telling Wilson wasn’t that much of a step further.  So he gathered his pride, and told the doctor everything. 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter Three

Rafe continued to seek Zander out during meals and in the circles.  After a few weeks, Zander reluctantly began calling him ‘friend.’  It was strange; he hadn’t allowed himself to get close to anyone since Cassie’s death, not even his sister or his father, but he found himself visiting Rafe’s room – hanging out just to read, or talk – and Rafe dropping by his room at all hours of the day.  It wasn’t long before the only thing that separated the two of them was the restriction on bedrooms – patients were not allowed to share rooms for any reason after ‘lights out’ – and their personal sessions with Dr Wilson and Dr Peretz.  Ezra Peretz was a Jewish man with an open, friendly face who had renounced his birth-faith after committing what he called an _aveira_ of _avon._   He refused to explain what the words meant, or what he’d done that required the lapse in his faith, but it did nothing to undermine his success as a doctor, and he often said he was on the road of _[teshuva](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teshuva)_. 

Zander learned that Wilson had a reputation around Edensgate for being standoffish and entirely businesslike – something Zander had yet to see for himself, as the man was unfailingly friendly towards him – while Dr. Peretz was known for his openness and affability.  He and Rafe cut a dashing image through the hallways of Edensgate, as the two of them were just as likely to be holding each other up in the throes of a laughing fit as they were to be discussing the seriousness of Rafe’s condition. 

Zander was beginning to think that the night-watchers had fled once he entered Edensgate, and he told Wilson as much during their Monday morning session. 

“I haven’t seen them once since I arrived,” he said.  “I still can’t sleep, though, because I _expect_ to see them, or hear them, and every noise I hear makes me think they’re coming for me.”

Wilson made some notes in a folder.  “And what do you think they’re after?”

“I don’t know,” Zander whispered.  “I wish I did.” 

“Do you think these night-watchers might be a psychological projection of guilt?”

“In other words, do I think that maybe I’m punishing myself for something?” Zander translated.  Wilson shook his head.

“Not at all.  I meant…” he trailed off, searching the ceiling for inspiration.  “I meant, is there a part of you that feels in any way guilty for your mother’s death, or for allowing your family to fall so far apart afterwards?”

Zander tugged on his hair, twining his fingers around the strands.  “I don’t feel guilty though.  It’s not my fault she was late at work, or the weather was bad.  Those things are completely beyond my control.  And there’s nothing I could have done –” he trailed off suddenly as he realised what Wilson was getting at.  He’d only been here three weeks, and so far Wilson had shown no signs of disbelief.  As he’d told Zander in the beginning, he didn’t disbelieve any of the things he heard – he absolutely and one hundred percent believed that the patients saw and heard the things they said they saw and heard.  Zander scowled.

“You think I’m imagining them.  That they’re not really there.”

Wilson gave a guilty start, refusing to meet Zander’s eyes.  “I believe that you believe they’re there.”

“What do I have to do to prove it to you?”

“Zander,” Wilson started, but Zander was already getting up.

“No,” he said.  “I’m not going to sit here and let you condescend to me.  I didn’t try to kill myself, I’m not seeing things, and I’m not crazy!”

He slammed the door behind him and made immediately for the deck where Rafe could usually be found smoking.

His friend nearly dropped his cigarette when he saw Zander storm out into the screened area where the patients were allowed during the day.  “What happened to you?  You’ve got nearly half an hour left with Wilson.”

Throwing himself into the chair opposite Rafe, Zander wrenched all ten fingers through his hair, tugging on it violently to calm himself.  “I’m not talking to him again,” he announced.  “I didn’t come here to be patronized.”

Rafe slowly stubbed the cigarette out.  “He doesn’t believe you,” he guessed.

Zander scowled at him.  “Like you do.”

“I don’t know what to believe.”  Rafe’s eyes flickered up, and his lips formed a warm smile.  Zander didn’t have to turn around to know that Nicole had just joined them on the deck.  She was pretty much Jay’s girlfriend, but Rafe adored her like a sister.

“I hope you don’t mind me coming to sit out here with you,” she said softly.  “Zander, Wilson was looking for you.  I didn’t tell him where you were.”

“Thank you.”

Rafe rolled his eyes at Zander’s frosty tone.  “Don’t pay Mr. Grumpy any attention,” he said.  “What brings you out here today?”

A pounding headache bloomed behind Zander’s eyes, throbbing in time with his heartbeat.  He didn’t have to look at Nicole to know that she’d look different than when she sat down.  He had yet to discover why she was there, but whenever she was near him, he always left her company with a migraine.

“Just wanted to see what you two were up to,” Nicole said, answering Rafe’s question.  “Jay’s off on his own right now, and I was bored with the television.”  A hand reached into Zander’s field of vision – he was studiously avoiding looking at either of them – and picked up one of Rafe’s cigarettes.  Confused, he glanced at her; Nicole was lighting up, taking a long drag on the cigarette and looking pleased.  It hadn’t been but two days ago that Rafe’s smoking had driven her off the deck, claiming that the smell made her sneeze.

“Nicole, why are you here?”

She offered him a slow smile.  “Because I’m crazy.  Why else?”

“No.  _Why_ are you here?”

His headache worsened.  Black spots danced in front of his eyes, but he refused to turn his attention from the girl sitting beside him.  Sucking in a ragged breath, he ignored the pain, waiting for her reply.

“You don’t know?”

“Nicole!”

“[Dissociative identity disorder](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder).”

Rafe’s mouth dropped open.  Zander’s migraine swelled to encompass his whole body, every inch of him humming with pain.  A voice that sounded like Nicole’s sounded from somewhere inside his head, saying _Don’t you see what you’re doing? Quit it!_

Everything around him turned dark, and the last thing he was aware of was Rafe shouting his name, sounding like he was very far away.

 

“Zander?”

Zander’s eyes flickered, and he opened them to see the relieved face of the nurse, Gabby Dulcina.  “Dulcina?”

“Thank god.  When you fainted, you really frightened Rafe, you know.  What brought that on?  Are you prone to fainting fits?”

“No,” Zander said, sitting up slowly.  The room swam disarmingly, but his head was clear.  “But Nicole gives me a headache.”

Gabby laughed.  “She gives us all headaches.  Wilson claims its because there’s so much electric activity going on in her brain that she messes the rest of us up.  I heard from Rafe that she told you about herself, and that’s what caused it?”

“Yeah, I guess.”  His mouth was dry and tasted like socks.  He realised he was back in his room, and wondered who had carried him up there.

“She even messes up our equipment.  Treating her is – well, it’s a bit of an adventure,” Gabby admitted.  “You’re feeling better?  Pulse is back to normal.” She pulled something off his arm, and he realised it was a blood pressure cuff.  “You’d better go see Rafe as soon as you can.  I almost had to threaten to lock the door to keep him out of here while you were out.”

“Yeah, I will,” Zander promised.  Gabby’s no-nonsense attitude was quickly restoring him to normal, and he was anxious to talk to Nicole again, to find out exactly what it was about her.  The revelations Gabby had given him didn’t reassure him in the least. 

When the nurse bustled out, Zander swung his feet over the side of the cot, noting that it was much later in the afternoon than it had been when he’d collapsed.  As promised, Rafe was waiting just outside the door when he came out into the hallway.

“Don’t you ever scare me like that again, Alexander Jaden,” Rafe said sternly, hands planted firmly on his hips.  Anything else he might have been about to say was drowned out by a commotion at the double doors leading into the main building.

The doors swung open violently, slamming on the walls with echoing bangs.  Three nursing assistants were wrestling someone onto the floor, quite literally. 

“I’ll not stay here and you cannot make me!” shouted an angry voice.  There was a hint of a lilt to it, and Zander felt like he ought to recognise it.  The black haired boy arched his back, kicking one of the assistants in the stomach.  Another moved in to take his place as the boy swore, the words so viciously vulgar that the tips of Zander’s ears went pink, and so distorted that he could barely make out most of it.

“That’s Dominick O’Brennan,” Rafe whispered, and at the sound of his name – audible even over the ruckus he was causing – Dominick settled in the grip of the nurses who held him, peering at the two lookers-on with cat-like curiousity.  Zander felt himself pinned under the force of those black eyes, unable to move.  Dominick pulled his unwanted escorts closer to them, and Zander found himself shifting closer to Rafe, a deep terror welling up inside him.

“Hello,” said Dominick, all smiles now.  His escort eyed him nervously, waiting for another fit.  “Who might you be?”  The Irish brogue was more powerful now that he was calmer, moderated by living in Boston for so long, but still there.  It was almost a musical voice, at complete odds with his violent demeanor just a few moments ago.

“Rafe Nazario,” Rafe said, sticking his hand out in front of Zander.  Dominick shook it briefly, giving Rafe a searching look.  He turned his eyes back to Zander, but much to the shorter boys relief, the electric current that had galvanised him the first time their eyes met, there was nothing but the quiet curiousity.

“Zander Jaden,” Zander offered, refusing to put his hand out.  Dominick noticed, but declined to comment on his rudeness. 

“Dominick O’Brennan,” said Dominick, rolling the ‘r’ and dragging out the ‘a’ in an exaggerated brogue.  “Pleasure to meet you both.”

“Sure, a pleasure,” Rafe said, bristling like a dog.  Zander had seen this at school but never understood it, that alpha-male posturing among the older boys vying for control of the field or gym, or hallway… he was perfectly content to stay out of it.  Let the others fight over who was top dog.  It wasn’t something he’d expected to find here, however, and as Rafe and Dominick took an instinctive dislike to each other, Zander could already hear the explosions.

 

“Well, Dominick was a surprise,” Wilson was saying.  “Wouldn’t you agree?”

Zander remained stubbornly mute, trying not to think about the Irish-American teen who’d recently taken it up as his personal mission to annoy Zander to death.  Every time he turned around, Dominick was there, always with a smile on his face and a friendly word, except when Rafe was around.  And Rafe was making more of an effort to take up Zander’s free time since the arrival of the O’Brennan heir, making Zander feel like a bone being fought over by two dogs.

“Very polite, very well mannered.  I almost didn’t believe stories of how he came onto the ward until I sat and watched the security tapes,” Wilson continued, carrying on the conversation one-sided.  “He seems to have taken a fancy to you, though from the way Gabby carries on, between Dominick and Rafe, World War Three is in imminent danger of happening right here in Edensgate.”

“He’s annoying,” Zander said, contributing finally. 

“Dominick?”

“Both of them.  Between them I never get a moment’s peace.”

Wilson was silent for a moment, and when Zander glanced up at him, was obviously trying to conceal laughter. 

“Go ahead and laugh,” Zander grumped.  “Everyone else does.”  It was true, too.  Jay and Nicole burst into helpless giggles whenever they saw him – whether or not he had one of his two shadows with him at the time – and even Gabby was having a hard time keeping her smile in check.  The only one who hadn’t seemed to care – or even notice – was the night nurse, Alicia Meddin.  Zander was pretty sure a herd of elephants could ride past on tricycles, playing harps and she wouldn’t notice. 

“I’m not going to laugh at you,” Wilson said, evidently having gotten himself under control.  “I’d like to talk about your family today.  What’s your sister like?”

“Dark clothes, angsty poetry, ravens and thunderstorms.  Next?”

 


	5. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter unfinished.

Zander found himself with a whole Saturday free, and nothing to do with the time.  Rafe was cloistered away with Dr. Peretz for the day in an experimental hypnosis treatment, and the ever-present Dominick was visiting his family in one of the solariums.  He hadn’t seen Jay or Nicole and figured the cozy couple were enjoying the weather together, or doing whatever else it was that they could find to approximate a ‘date’ in Edensgate. 

He wandered up and down the hallways for a while, peering through the cracks in the boards covering the doors to the closed off extra wings.  It looked like they’d been boarded up and forgotten; a wheelchair sat in a dusty stream of sunlight coming in through a yellowed window, and papers littered the floor.  Further down the hallway, he could see a gurney shoved against the wall.

“ _Zander._ ”

The unfamiliar voice whispered over his shoulder, and he whipped around, expecting to see Rafe or Dominick playing a trick on him.  To his abject surprise, there was no one in the hallway except himself.  The on-call nurse filling in for Gabby was still visible behind the desk at the nurses station, shuffling papers around and cradling a phone against his ear. 


End file.
